Cowell Devlin hesitated. The truth, of course, was that Emery Staines was one of the three names written upon the deed of gift that he had taken from the ash-drawer of Crosbie Wells’s range, the day after the hermit’s death. He had not showed that deed to anyone, however, and he had resolved not to do so, until he knew a little more about the people it concerned. Ought he to lie to Balfour? He did not like to utter falsehoods, but perhaps he could tell a partial truth. He bit his lip.
Balfour had perceived the chaplain’s hesitation, and had mistaken it for reproof. He put up his hands. ‘Hark at me,’ he exclaimed, ‘asking questions in the street—and in the weather—when we’re getting wetter all the time! Look here. How about we share a meal together? Something hot. There’s no sense in talking out of doors—not when there are warm hotels on either side of us, and good cheer to be had.’
Devlin glanced at Tauwhare, who, despite his dislike of Balfour, had brightened considerably at the prospect of a meal.
Balfour coughed, and then thumped his chest with his fist, wincing. ‘I wasn’t myself this morning—out of sorts; I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry for it—and I mean to make it up—to both of you. I’ll stand us all a plate of something, and we’ll have a drink together—as friends. Come: let a man say he’s sorry, when he asks.’
The threesome was soon established at a corner table at Maxwell’s. Balfour, who was always very happy to play the role of the munificent host, ordered three bowls of clear soup, a round of bread, a fat black pudding, a hard cheese, sardines in oil, hot buttered carrots, a pot of stewed oysters, and a demijohn of stout. He had the prescience to delay any talk of Crosbie Wells or Emery Staines until both his guests were sated with food and drink, and talked instead of whaling, a subject of which all three men had a most romantic conception, and much to share. When Benjamin Lowenthal found them some three-quarters of an hour later, they were a very merry party.
‘Ben!’ cried Balfour, when he saw Lowenthal approaching. ‘But what about your Sabbath?’
He had become, for the second time that day, rather drunk.
‘Ends at starlight,’ Lowenthal said shortly. To Tauwhare he said, ‘I believe that we have not yet been introduced. I am Benjamin Lowenthal; I publish the
‘Te Rau Tauwhare,’ the Maori man replied, and shook his hand very firmly.
‘He also goes by Ted,’ said Balfour. ‘Very good friend of Crosbie Wells.’
‘Were you?’ said Lowenthal to Tauwhare.
‘His finest friend,’ said Devlin.
‘Better than brothers,’ said Balfour.
‘Well, in that case,’ said Lowenthal, ‘my business concerns all three of you.’
Benjamin Lowenthal had no authority to widen the invitation to the Crown Hotel council to include Devlin and Tauwhare. But as we have observed already, Lowenthal could be very forbidding when his ethical code was affronted, and Charlie Frost had affronted him, that afternoon, by suggesting that the Crown assembly ought to be restricted to an exclusive few. Lowenthal felt the need to rectify what he perceived to have been Frost’s moral error, and he extended the invitation to Tauwhare and Devlin now as an obscure act of reproach.
‘Capital,’ Balfour said. ‘Pull up a chair.’
Lowenthal sat down, placed the palms of his hands together, and, in a low voice, explained the purpose of the meeting that evening—to which Balfour acquiesced immediately, Tauwhare gravely, and Cowell Devlin after a long, judicious pause. The chaplain was thinking about the deed of gift that he had taken from the hermit’s stove, currently stored in his Bible, between the Old Testament and the New. He resolved to bring his Bible with him to the council that evening, and to produce the deed, if the occasion moved him, and the timing was right.
There was smoke issuing from Gascoigne’s chimney, and upon Mannering’s knock, the door opened promptly, and Gascoigne peered out. He was holding a freshly lit cigarette, and had exchanged his formal jacket for shirtsleeves and a woollen vest.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘I have it on good information that you’re holding on to some money,’ Dick Mannering said. ‘That money’s mine, and I’ve come to collect it.’
Aubert Gascoigne looked at him, then put his cigarette to his lips, inhaled, and blew a stream of smoke over Mannering’s shoulder, into the rain. ‘Who is the source of your good information?’ he said mildly.
‘Miss Anna Wetherell, by way of Mr. Edgar Clinch,’ Mannering said.
Gascoigne leaned against the doorframe. ‘And how did Miss Anna Wetherell, by way of Mr. Edgar Clinch, imagine that you would act, upon receiving this good information?’
‘Don’t play clever with me,’ Mannering said. ‘Don’t do it. I’ll only tell you once: I don’t like cleverness one bit. She says the money’s hidden under your bed.’
Gascoigne shrugged. ‘Well, if I am holding a fortune for Anna,’ he said, ‘I am doing it on promise, and see no reason why I should break that promise, and hand the money over to another man—just because he claims the money belongs to him. She certainly did not tell me to expect a visitor.’
‘It does belong to me.’
‘How so?’
‘It’s a debt,’ Mannering said. ‘She owes me.’
‘A debt is a private business,’ Gascoigne said.
‘A debt can be made public very easily. How would you like it if I spread the word that you were holding on to more than a hundred pounds in pure? Let me tell you. By midnight your door would be beaten down, by dawn the thief would be fifty miles away, and by this time to-morrow, you would be dead. Why, there’d be nothing easier—when you’ve no allegiances to speak of, and you live alone.’
Gascoigne’s expression darkened. ‘I am the custodian of that gold, and I will not hand it over without Miss Wetherell’s consent.’
Mannering smiled. ‘I’m going to take that as an admission of guilt.’
‘And I’m going to take
He made to close the door, but Mannering stepped forward and put out his hand, halting him.
‘Strange, isn’t it?’ he said.
Gascoigne scowled. ‘What is strange?’
‘Strange how a common whore suddenly fronts up with gold enough to pay the sum total of her obligations—and then hides that sum total beneath the bed of a man who’s been in Hokitika barely long enough to learn her name.’
‘It is excessively strange.’
‘Perhaps I ought to introduce myself.’
‘I know who you are,’ Gascoigne said. ‘And I know what you do.’
Mannering unbuttoned his coat to reveal his pistols. ‘Do you know what these are? And do you know what they do?’
‘Yes,’ said Gascoigne coolly. ‘Those are percussion revolvers, and they can each fire six rounds in six seconds flat.’
‘Seven rounds, actually,’ said Mannering. ‘Second issue Smith & Wessons. Seven rounds each. But six seconds is right.’
Gascoigne took another draught of his cigarette.
Mannering placed his hands upon his holsters, smiling. ‘I must ask you to invite me into your home, Mr. Gascoigne.’
The Frenchman did not reply, but after a moment he crushed the end of his cigarette on the doorframe, dropped it, stepped to the side, and gestured with exaggerated courtesy for Mannering to enter. Mannering glanced to the corners of the room, letting his gaze linger pointedly on Gascoigne’s bed. Once Gascoigne had closed the door behind him, he rounded on his host and said,
‘Who has your loyalty?’
‘I am not sure I understand the question,’ Gascoigne said. ‘You wish me to make a list of my friends?’
Mannering glared at him. ‘Here’s my question,’ he said. ‘Does Anna have your loyalty?’
‘Yes,’ Gascoigne said. ‘Up to a point, of course.’ He sat down in his striped wingback armchair, but made no gesture to offer his guest a seat.
